From ColaCao's 70% sugar to dark chocolate's 1%
ColaCao declares 70% sugar and Nocilla 56%, while 99% dark chocolate drops to just 1%. The label figures that change what goes in your shopping basket.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
From ColaCao's 70% sugar to dark chocolate's 1%
How much sugar are you actually taking in when you dip your spoon into a jar of ColaCao? Seventy grams per hundred. That's the figure that opens this roundup of chocolate and cocoa product labels, and the one that explains why more than a few people have ended up staring at the nutrition table with the same face as someone opening a bill. Nocilla, for that matter, comes in at **56%**. As for salt, none of the products reviewed reach 0.15%.
The inventory doesn't stop at spreads. A Tirma 70% cocoa dark chocolate declares **23.90% sugar**; the 74% versions from Bellarom and Dia climb to **27%**; J.D. Gross's 81% drops to 16.80%; Hacendado's 85% sits at 15% and Lindt's at 14%. The big drops come at the top: Lindt's 90% clocks in at 7% and the 99% lands at just **1%**. Simon Coll's 99%, according to available data, sits around 2%.
The two that break the pattern
Plot cocoa against sugar on a graph and the line should fall on its own: more cocoa, less sugar. And it does fall, but with two exceptions that spoil the picture. The **74% cocoa chocolates carry more sugar** than they should for what they promise, and the 90% one falls short in proportion compared to the rest. Hacendado's 85% also creeps slightly above the trend.
That's the first lesson of this story: the cocoa percentage on the label guarantees nothing. The big number is a marketing hook, but the nutritional breakdown is what counts. And it's worth not confusing two things that often get mixed up: the ingredients list (cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter, defatted cocoa, sunflower lecithin, vanilla flavouring) and the nutrients panel, where sugar also includes what the cocoa itself naturally contains.
Some also point to a problem that comes before sugar: **flours**. Cocoa preparations contain them, and that's where part of the calorie budget goes without anyone noticing.
Why pure cocoa is a rarity in the supermarket
The answer is Economics 101: sugar is cheap and cocoa is expensive. Selling a product with lots of sugar and little cocoa is more profitable than the opposite, which is why brands only boast about the percentage when it suits them. When a chocolate doesn't display its cocoa % in big letters, it's because sugar rules.
The result is a laughable selection. In large stores, 100% pure cocoa boils down to the **Valor** jar, in an XL 340-gram format at 4.85 euros versus the usual 250 grams for 4 euros. Beyond that, health food shops, the odd Hipercor with pricier brands, a Lidl with considerably cheaper baking cocoa powder and not much else. Finding it becomes an obstacle course: some people ask in a shop and get pointed to the ColaCao shelf.
How to take the powder without dying in the attempt
The first spoonful straight up is an initiation ritual: mouth full of powder, struggle to swallow, zero desire to repeat. The formulas that work involve dissolving it first in a finger of water or hot milk, stirring little —it colours a lot and tastes strong— and then topping up with milk. No sugar. Over time, your palate adjusts and any commercial chocolate bar starts to taste like caramel.
Other variations that come up: mixing it with hot water and adding oats and a few raisins, or sweetening it with a teaspoon of honey. And for those who want to make the most of it in the kitchen, cakes and brownies, with the obvious caveat that butter and sugar sneak in through the back door there.
The sweetener business and the 0% sugar label
A "0% sugar" label is not good news. Products bearing it usually replace sugar with polyalcohols —maltitol, erythritol— and token amounts of stevia that mainly serve to get the name on the package. Polyalcohols exist in nature, but as an additive they're used in far higher doses and have well-known laxative effects. The real advantage is that they aren't metabolised like sugar and don't cause cavities.
The final irony comes from cocoa itself: the worse someone reacts to a pure food, the more toxic their system is and the more they need it. Or so the naturopathic story goes. At these prices and with this selection, anyone who can stomach the bitterness saves a fortune on the dentist.
How much sugar are you actually taking in when you dip your spoon into a jar of ColaCao? Seventy grams per hundred. That's the figure that opens this roundup of chocolate and cocoa product labels, and the one that explains why more than a few people have ended up staring at the nutrition table with the same face as someone opening a bill. Nocilla, for that matter, comes in at **56%**. As for salt, none of the products reviewed reach 0.15%.
The inventory doesn't stop at spreads. A Tirma 70% cocoa dark chocolate declares **23.90% sugar**; the 74% versions from Bellarom and Dia climb to **27%**; J.D. Gross's 81% drops to 16.80%; Hacendado's 85% sits at 15% and Lindt's at 14%. The big drops come at the top: Lindt's 90% clocks in at 7% and the 99% lands at just **1%**. Simon Coll's 99%, according to available data, sits around 2%.
The two that break the pattern
Plot cocoa against sugar on a graph and the line should fall on its own: more cocoa, less sugar. And it does fall, but with two exceptions that spoil the picture. The **74% cocoa chocolates carry more sugar** than they should for what they promise, and the 90% one falls short in proportion compared to the rest. Hacendado's 85% also creeps slightly above the trend.
That's the first lesson of this story: the cocoa percentage on the label guarantees nothing. The big number is a marketing hook, but the nutritional breakdown is what counts. And it's worth not confusing two things that often get mixed up: the ingredients list (cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter, defatted cocoa, sunflower lecithin, vanilla flavouring) and the nutrients panel, where sugar also includes what the cocoa itself naturally contains.
Some also point to a problem that comes before sugar: **flours**. Cocoa preparations contain them, and that's where part of the calorie budget goes without anyone noticing.
Why pure cocoa is a rarity in the supermarket
The answer is Economics 101: sugar is cheap and cocoa is expensive. Selling a product with lots of sugar and little cocoa is more profitable than the opposite, which is why brands only boast about the percentage when it suits them. When a chocolate doesn't display its cocoa % in big letters, it's because sugar rules.
The result is a laughable selection. In large stores, 100% pure cocoa boils down to the **Valor** jar, in an XL 340-gram format at 4.85 euros versus the usual 250 grams for 4 euros. Beyond that, health food shops, the odd Hipercor with pricier brands, a Lidl with considerably cheaper baking cocoa powder and not much else. Finding it becomes an obstacle course: some people ask in a shop and get pointed to the ColaCao shelf.
How to take the powder without dying in the attempt
The first spoonful straight up is an initiation ritual: mouth full of powder, struggle to swallow, zero desire to repeat. The formulas that work involve dissolving it first in a finger of water or hot milk, stirring little —it colours a lot and tastes strong— and then topping up with milk. No sugar. Over time, your palate adjusts and any commercial chocolate bar starts to taste like caramel.
Other variations that come up: mixing it with hot water and adding oats and a few raisins, or sweetening it with a teaspoon of honey. And for those who want to make the most of it in the kitchen, cakes and brownies, with the obvious caveat that butter and sugar sneak in through the back door there.
The sweetener business and the 0% sugar label
A "0% sugar" label is not good news. Products bearing it usually replace sugar with polyalcohols —maltitol, erythritol— and token amounts of stevia that mainly serve to get the name on the package. Polyalcohols exist in nature, but as an additive they're used in far higher doses and have well-known laxative effects. The real advantage is that they aren't metabolised like sugar and don't cause cavities.
The final irony comes from cocoa itself: the worse someone reacts to a pure food, the more toxic their system is and the more they need it. Or so the naturopathic story goes. At these prices and with this selection, anyone who can stomach the bitterness saves a fortune on the dentist.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (46 replies).
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